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I use Mailgun with various client sites. Where I find these sorts of services awkward as they become paid (Google Maps APIs are similar) is that for each client

by prawn 7y ago

I use Mailgun with various client sites. Where I find these sorts of services awkward as they become paid (Google Maps APIs are similar) is that for each client I have to put my credit card on file, monitor charges and bear costs in case of a blow-up OR I have to go through the hassle of coaching technically hapless clients through logging in and adding a credit card. “I thought you said it would be free?” “It probably will be, but we still have to add your card.” “What do you mean ‘probably’?”

brudgers 7y ago
The problem is having clients who expect free...or rather delivering free to clients who expect free. Your job isn't to save the client money on your services. If having your credit card on file provides value to the client, then charge the client. If it doesn't, charge them anyway because it has value to you.
- prawn 7y ago
  We started with Mailgun when the free tier seemed established and permanent. No card required. Our CMS taps into their API. Then they required a unique phone number for each account and even that was a time sink getting clients to comprehend what was going on. I think some people underestimate how cost-sensitive some clients are. And how time poor some small businesses are.
  - bigiain 7y ago
    > I think some people underestimate how cost-sensitive some clients are. And how time poor some small businesses are. Those aren't "clients", they're "moochers". If they're prepared to walk away because it costs them $35/month to send to their mailing list, you probably owe it to yourself/your business to spend your time seeking new better clients rather than talking them thru how to get stuff/service for less than $35/month... Your business should be "cost sensitive" as well...
    - redsymbol 7y ago
      Exactly. My business lifted off when I realized my market isn't the people who benefit from what I'm selling. My market is people who benefit from what I'm selling, and are willing to pay for value. Freeloaders are simply not in my market. And with that focus, I've been able to exponentially improve the value of what my company provides.
    - prawn 7y ago
      They are clients if they found us to provide a service they needed, and we can provide it in a profitable way. Our business found Mailgun to be a great solution when we anticipated clients would stick under 10k/mo and not need a card on file. With Stripe, every time they pay their cut, they've had a sale. Every time they mail-out through MailChimp, it's to a list of customers. We are usually using Mailgun to send transactional emails. I can't promise a client that they won't get a flurry of junk signups or password reset mailouts that hit their credit card. The bottom 50% of the market is heading to self-serve site-builders and it's savage for a small web business.
      - vermontdevil 7y ago
        Mailgun does not owe you or anyone a free tier. Start charging your clients money to cover costs that comes with their business.
        prawn 7y ago
        They literally offered a free tier! My original point was not even anything to do with cost but hassle!
        bigiain 7y ago
        In most businesses "hassle" and "cost" are synonyms...
        Scoundreller 7y ago
        I think the ask is that we wished Mailgun did that from the start instead of creating messes later in the process.
  - brudgers 7y ago
    I don't underestimate how bad clients can be. I don't over-estimate how hard it is for some self-employed people to ask for more money. It's ok to be fired by people who aren't paying you. It's even better to fire clients who aren't.
    - prawn 7y ago
      These clients ARE paying me. I like them. They just have an overloaded plate of issues and it’s no fun having to tax them further when a third-party setup changes. Initial point wasn’t even about cost but hassle.
      - deleted 7y ago
        [deleted]
  - brudgers 7y ago
    I don't underestimate how small businesses operate. The issue here is that the relationship has B2C connotations. To me, that's unhealthy. B2C relationships are about bargains and lowest price. B2B relationships are sustained by each party wanting the other party to stay in business. Your problem cascades from a B2C approaches to a B2B relationships. Not just yours to your client, but Mailgun's B2C approach to its relationship with your business. Free commercial email is likely to be unsustainable. At best, it's money left on the table because at 10k emails a month, there won't be many conversions. They were delivering free to a customer who expected free with the same damage to the customer's perception of the relationship as between you and your client. The only part under your total control was whether or not to charge your client money. If you had, then the bad part would be Mailgun raising its prices. You would have had the option of eating the cost. Or having the unpleasant conversation with your client. Maybe there's something slimy about charging a client for a free tier mail service. That's also under your control. Just pay for a paid tier and pass along cost at normal markup. In the long run, and that's what B2B relationships are about, it will tend to be simpler and simpler tends to be better for everyone.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
ChuckMcM 7y ago
Perhaps the better answer is to never pitch or put your clients on any "free" plan. Explain that these sorts of marketing and outreach campaigns cost money, just like getting a Yellow Pages ad costs money, and perhaps work with them on figuring out how many customers or leads these efforts generate so they can more accurately evaluate the cost.
- prawn 7y ago
  I have a lot of clients using MailChimp's free plan which has worked well for them. I am grandfathered into using all Google's services for my business for free (ignore usual criticisms of Google) because I got in early. I've worked in this industry for over 20 years and found that the more complicated your explanation, the less likely clients are to want to work with you. Being a stick in the mud on usability is another example - they'll leave for someone who'll make them a splash page without question, etc.
  - ChuckMcM 7y ago
    I certainly understand that. And grandfathered or not your use of Google's services for 'free' for your business is coming to an end. As long as you understand the risk you are carrying you can price out the externalities of it going south. To explain that, consider this artificial example made up based on what you just wrote; "I have a lot of clients using MailChimp's free plan ..." Now lets say MailChimp has a tough few quarters, maybe they get a new CEO or maybe they just need to get more money for their services than they currently do and so they revise their "free" plans into non-free plans in ways that prevent some chunk of your customers from using their free plans. Your customers are forced to change their previously working system for a different system. Four outcomes pop out of that event; They can use their current system but now it costs them more money, they can hire you (more money) to come up with another free system which they now know will only last for some random period of time, you can design a new system for them for free (costs you money), or they can go with a new contractor who will design a new system for them. As the original provider of the system, you cannot predict when this event will occur. It may occur at a slow time, it may occur on black friday when it the customer's busiest time of year. And as the original provider you cannot predict the new cost of the system, or the cost of a replacement system. So the risk you are carrying here is mostly reputational (some of your customers will say bad things about you if this event happens at a bad time or costs them a lot of money they were not expecting to pay.) Depending on what type of warranty you provide or imply for your services (most people disclaim these so the common case would be to leave the customer with the costs) you may be carrying some financial risk to correct the future situation. I will reiterate that there is absolutely nothing wrong with carrying this risk, as long as you are aware you are carrying it. Because you can plan for the various cases (for example by continually researching equivalents to MailChimp so that in the event this happens you can quickly and easily move your customers over to the new solution)
tclancy 7y ago
Oh. I haven't done consulting in a couple of years, but in the decade I did, I always insisted clients sign up for anything important on their own. Not just for this reason, maybe really not for that reason at all, I sold it as, "If we decide a year from now we hate each other, I want you to be in complete control of your site/ tools."
jelling 7y ago
Have your clients created a virtual card number using Privacy.com and allocate $X of spend to it per month. They can then give you that card number to setup their services.
- prawn 7y ago
  We're not in the US. They would also question this as something they haven't had to do for any other service. Plus, painful to repeat for dozens of small clients. I appreciate the idea though.
bdcravens 7y ago
Do you as a consultant have a free tier?
- prawn 7y ago
  Yes, I have worked free for charity, free for friends, and free/speculatively for or with people on projects hoping that some pay off. Some do. I have a SaaS product with a free tier (like Mailgun) and I have had an app/game which was free with an upgrade. (My initial point was not about the freemium model but about other changes that have made working with Mailgun difficult.)

by prawn 7y ago

brudgers 7y ago

The problem is having clients who expect free...or rather delivering free to clients who expect free. Your job isn't to save the client money on your services. If having your credit card on file provides value to the client, then charge the client. If it doesn't, charge them anyway because it has value to you.

prawn 7y ago
We started with Mailgun when the free tier seemed established and permanent. No card required. Our CMS taps into their API. Then they required a unique phone number for each account and even that was a time sink getting clients to comprehend what was going on. I think some people underestimate how cost-sensitive some clients are. And how time poor some small businesses are.
- bigiain 7y ago
  > I think some people underestimate how cost-sensitive some clients are. And how time poor some small businesses are. Those aren't "clients", they're "moochers". If they're prepared to walk away because it costs them $35/month to send to their mailing list, you probably owe it to yourself/your business to spend your time seeking new better clients rather than talking them thru how to get stuff/service for less than $35/month... Your business should be "cost sensitive" as well...
  - redsymbol 7y ago
    Exactly. My business lifted off when I realized my market isn't the people who benefit from what I'm selling. My market is people who benefit from what I'm selling, and are willing to pay for value. Freeloaders are simply not in my market. And with that focus, I've been able to exponentially improve the value of what my company provides.
  - prawn 7y ago
    They are clients if they found us to provide a service they needed, and we can provide it in a profitable way. Our business found Mailgun to be a great solution when we anticipated clients would stick under 10k/mo and not need a card on file. With Stripe, every time they pay their cut, they've had a sale. Every time they mail-out through MailChimp, it's to a list of customers. We are usually using Mailgun to send transactional emails. I can't promise a client that they won't get a flurry of junk signups or password reset mailouts that hit their credit card. The bottom 50% of the market is heading to self-serve site-builders and it's savage for a small web business.
    - vermontdevil 7y ago
      Mailgun does not owe you or anyone a free tier. Start charging your clients money to cover costs that comes with their business.
      - prawn 7y ago
        They literally offered a free tier! My original point was not even anything to do with cost but hassle!
        bigiain 7y ago
        In most businesses "hassle" and "cost" are synonyms...
      - Scoundreller 7y ago
        I think the ask is that we wished Mailgun did that from the start instead of creating messes later in the process.
- brudgers 7y ago
  I don't underestimate how bad clients can be. I don't over-estimate how hard it is for some self-employed people to ask for more money. It's ok to be fired by people who aren't paying you. It's even better to fire clients who aren't.
  - prawn 7y ago
    These clients ARE paying me. I like them. They just have an overloaded plate of issues and it’s no fun having to tax them further when a third-party setup changes. Initial point wasn’t even about cost but hassle.
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
- brudgers 7y ago
  I don't underestimate how small businesses operate. The issue here is that the relationship has B2C connotations. To me, that's unhealthy. B2C relationships are about bargains and lowest price. B2B relationships are sustained by each party wanting the other party to stay in business. Your problem cascades from a B2C approaches to a B2B relationships. Not just yours to your client, but Mailgun's B2C approach to its relationship with your business. Free commercial email is likely to be unsustainable. At best, it's money left on the table because at 10k emails a month, there won't be many conversions. They were delivering free to a customer who expected free with the same damage to the customer's perception of the relationship as between you and your client. The only part under your total control was whether or not to charge your client money. If you had, then the bad part would be Mailgun raising its prices. You would have had the option of eating the cost. Or having the unpleasant conversation with your client. Maybe there's something slimy about charging a client for a free tier mail service. That's also under your control. Just pay for a paid tier and pass along cost at normal markup. In the long run, and that's what B2B relationships are about, it will tend to be simpler and simpler tends to be better for everyone.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]

ChuckMcM 7y ago

Perhaps the better answer is to never pitch or put your clients on any "free" plan. Explain that these sorts of marketing and outreach campaigns cost money, just like getting a Yellow Pages ad costs money, and perhaps work with them on figuring out how many customers or leads these efforts generate so they can more accurately evaluate the cost.

prawn 7y ago
I have a lot of clients using MailChimp's free plan which has worked well for them. I am grandfathered into using all Google's services for my business for free (ignore usual criticisms of Google) because I got in early. I've worked in this industry for over 20 years and found that the more complicated your explanation, the less likely clients are to want to work with you. Being a stick in the mud on usability is another example - they'll leave for someone who'll make them a splash page without question, etc.
- ChuckMcM 7y ago
  I certainly understand that. And grandfathered or not your use of Google's services for 'free' for your business is coming to an end. As long as you understand the risk you are carrying you can price out the externalities of it going south. To explain that, consider this artificial example made up based on what you just wrote; "I have a lot of clients using MailChimp's free plan ..." Now lets say MailChimp has a tough few quarters, maybe they get a new CEO or maybe they just need to get more money for their services than they currently do and so they revise their "free" plans into non-free plans in ways that prevent some chunk of your customers from using their free plans. Your customers are forced to change their previously working system for a different system. Four outcomes pop out of that event; They can use their current system but now it costs them more money, they can hire you (more money) to come up with another free system which they now know will only last for some random period of time, you can design a new system for them for free (costs you money), or they can go with a new contractor who will design a new system for them. As the original provider of the system, you cannot predict when this event will occur. It may occur at a slow time, it may occur on black friday when it the customer's busiest time of year. And as the original provider you cannot predict the new cost of the system, or the cost of a replacement system. So the risk you are carrying here is mostly reputational (some of your customers will say bad things about you if this event happens at a bad time or costs them a lot of money they were not expecting to pay.) Depending on what type of warranty you provide or imply for your services (most people disclaim these so the common case would be to leave the customer with the costs) you may be carrying some financial risk to correct the future situation. I will reiterate that there is absolutely nothing wrong with carrying this risk, as long as you are aware you are carrying it. Because you can plan for the various cases (for example by continually researching equivalents to MailChimp so that in the event this happens you can quickly and easily move your customers over to the new solution)

tclancy 7y ago

Oh. I haven't done consulting in a couple of years, but in the decade I did, I always insisted clients sign up for anything important on their own. Not just for this reason, maybe really not for that reason at all, I sold it as, "If we decide a year from now we hate each other, I want you to be in complete control of your site/ tools."

jelling 7y ago

Have your clients created a virtual card number using Privacy.com and allocate $X of spend to it per month. They can then give you that card number to setup their services.

prawn 7y ago
We're not in the US. They would also question this as something they haven't had to do for any other service. Plus, painful to repeat for dozens of small clients. I appreciate the idea though.

bdcravens 7y ago

Do you as a consultant have a free tier?

prawn 7y ago
Yes, I have worked free for charity, free for friends, and free/speculatively for or with people on projects hoping that some pay off. Some do. I have a SaaS product with a free tier (like Mailgun) and I have had an app/game which was free with an upgrade. (My initial point was not about the freemium model but about other changes that have made working with Mailgun difficult.)